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Dorothy Thompson
94 quotes
“As far as I can see, I really was put out of Germany for the crime of blasphemy. [...] My offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man, after all. This is a crime against the reigning cult in Germany, which says that Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people — an old Jewish idea. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are German you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I merely was sent to Paris. Worse things can happen to one.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of August 1934, after being expelled from Germany, quoted in Dorothy Thompson : A Legend In Her Time (1973) by Marion K. Sanders, p. 199
“I am not an expert on constitutional law, and my only justification for taking your time is that I have been for some years, as a foreign correspondent, an observer at the collapse of constitutional democracies. You might say I have been a researcher into the mortality of republics. The outstanding fact of our times is the decline and fall of constitutional democracy. A great need of our time is for more accurate analysis of the pathology of constitutional government, of why constitutional government perishes.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1392 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 31 March 1937, testimony to the Committee on the Judiciary of the US Senate. Reorganization of the Federal Judiciary: Extract from Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Seventy-fifth Cong…
“It is true that the techniques of war are constantly "improved" as the genius of an age of invention is put in the service of the war machine. But that is not what is most disturbing. What is revolutionary is that the minds of men, women and children are being deliberately trained, directed, distorted, by every conceivable instrument of education and propaganda, to make them tolerant of war, receptive of war, prepared for war, lovers of war. The greatest menace in the world is not poison gas. There are gas masks against that. The menace is poisoned words, poisoned ideas.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dilemma of a Pacifist"(1937)
“Having first robbed the Jews, the Nazis are beginning to rob the Church, and later will almost certainly expropriate what is left of the bourgeoisie property.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Record" Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg, PA) (March 6, 1939)
“It does not matter how 'courageous' a writer may be. Courage becomes useless, for a courageous writer who is not published is not a writer at all.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Meyer Weisgal, 5 March 1947, as quoted in American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson (1990) by Peter Kurth.
“Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Courage to be Happy (1957), p. 132
“The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness; aggressiveness engenders hostility; hostility engenders fear — a disastrous circle.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Courage to Be Happy (1957)
“It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives. When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Record", Ladies Home Journal (May 1958)
“They have not wanted Peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war — as though the absence of war was the same as peace.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Record", Ladies Home Journal (May 1958)
“What was once Sinclair Lewis is buried in no ground. Even in life he was fully alive only in his writing. He lives in public libraries from Maine to California, in worn copies in the bookshelves of women from small towns who, in their girlhood, imagined themselves as Carol Kennicotts, and of medical men who, as youths, were inspired by Martin Arrowsmith.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her former husband Sinclair Lewis. "The Boy From Sauk Center", The Atlantic (November 1960)
“To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A comment regarding her divorce from Sinclair Lewis, quoted by Vincent Sheean in Dorothy and Red (1963)
“Private shops [in Soviet Russia]. . . are taxed higher than co-operatives, are granted less favorable concessions, and enjoy a grudging legality. Nevertheless, their owners often make a great deal of money. The only explanation for it is the shortage of goods and the hunger for them. When one asks for the explanation of such a phenomenon in an agricultural country one is told: The government is exporting grain, the milk or egg price is too low and the peasants are holding back.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In these ten years urban Russia having destroyed, exiled, or reduced to the most abject misery all representatives of that previous civilization, is without most bourgeoisie amenities.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hotels are entirely run by the Moscow Soviet, which seems to have picked its employees rather for their political reliability than for their experience or cleverness at hotel management.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Indeed, gaiety is singularly lacking everywhere in Russia. What is intense and joyful goes into pioneer work and not into amusement. Only in the company of young communists and artists can one find stimulation.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The people were to 'awaken' and Hitler's movement was going to vote dictatorship in! In itself a fascinating idea. Imagine a would-be dictator setting out to persuade a sovereign people to vote away their rights.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was lofty and remote from all foreigners. Germany for the Germans. Scorn for Americans, the dollar-chasers, the money-grubbers, the profiteers.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When finally I walked into Adolf Hitler's salon in the Kaiserhof Hotel, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany. In something less than fifty seconds I was quite sure that I was not. It took just that time to measure the startling insignificance of this man who has set the whole world agog.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The interview was difficult, because one cannot carry on a conversation with Adolph Hitler. He speaks always, as though he were addressing a mass meeting. In personal intercourse he is shy, almost embarrassed. In every question he seeks for a theme that will set him off. Then his eyes focus in some far corner of the room; a hysterical note creeps into his voice which rises sometimes almost to a scream. He gives the impression of a man in a trance. He bangs the table.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Millions of Germans follow Hitler because he has proclaimed war upon the banks, upon the trusts, upon 'loan-capital.' He has asserted time and time again that he will abolish the rule of one class by another.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hitler intends he told me to house as many of the unemployed as possible in barracks… and employ them in the service of the state at soldier's wages, of something like six cents a day with room and keep. This will serve two ends: re-begin general military training and raise a force of road-builders, etc. He intends to break up such great estates as are not now being cultivated by their owners and carry on an extensive colonization plan. This, however, is already being done by the present government.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the subject of the constitution Hitler was more explicit, though there again, I had to interrupt an address to an unseen gallery. 'I will get into power legally. I will abolish this parliament and the Weimar constitution afterward. I will found an authority-state, from the lowest cell to the highest instance; everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below.' So that's that for the Republic.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anti-semitism became equal to anti-Republicanism. And Hitler went to the peasants with a campaign of anti-capitalism.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The capitalism which Hitler fought was so-called 'loan capitalism.'—Finance, and the great trusts and cartels depending upon the banks. Department stores were included because, as it happened, many of them had Jewish owners. Expropriate Department Store Owners! Nationalize the trusts and the banks! Break up the Great Estates!'”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Above all, he appeals to the invisible realities, to the emotions, to faith rather than reason. His speeches are full of talk about Honor, Folk, Fatherland, Loyalty, Family, Sacrifice, Revenge. 'He begins,' says a writer who has often heard him, 'in a gentle tenor voice. It is usually fifteen minutes before the miracle happens. Then it comes. Literally, it seems. 'the spirit enters into him.' He is possessed. Phrases come to his lips with are artistically perfect.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Patriotism is the cheapest form of self-exaltation. If one is in debt, if one has not made a success of life—still, says Hitler, one belongs to the RACE. 'All that is not Race, is dross!' is one of his exclamations. The Germanys are a superior race and it is ordained that this superior race shall conquer the earth.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once in power, will he want to risk another French invasion? What, becomes, then, of his sonorous calls to arms? He will have to maintain law and order. What becomes then, of his promises to a revolutionary working class?”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fascism, Nazism, and Communism are all Collectivism. In this respect they are all alike.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The communist theory is that a world war is inevitable; that in that war, if they play their cards well, the democracies will be lined up against the fascist dictatorships, and that the result of the war will be the triumph of Communism all over the world. Their chief program now is to get the democracies so lined up.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The production of wealth by private enterprise is called Capitalism. It is hard to call Capitalism one of the isms, because Capitalism is not a creed at all. Capitalism was not 'invented' by any sociologist or philosopher. Capitalists never called themselves that. The word was invented by socialists to describe what they hated.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[P]rivate enterprise and initiative, willing to take risks in the hope of gain, allowed to function in freedom, have produced the greatest wealth ever known in the history of mankind. And that if you stop this process and turn everything over to government, the activity will slow down, inventiveness will cease, and we shall get not equalization of riches, but equalization of poverty.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It became the fashion a few years ago to say that civil liberties meant nothing to the average man; that his freedom was just freedom to starve. But it also happens that the 'free' countries are those which the underprivileged are best fed.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A great many people say that there is a great battle going on in the world: between Fascism and Communism. Fascism is represented as Capitalism in its ultimate and final form, when it controls the state wholly. Communism is represented as the final expression of democracy. But this theory was invented by fascists and communists. To a democrat, looking on, it seems like a sham battle.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We see Russia developing into a strongly centralized, highly nationalistic, intensely militarized state, subjecting policy and public welfare to national and military aims; and we see Benito Mussolini nationalizing more and more enterprises, restricting private initiative more and more, while the economic dictator of Germany becomes, not the capitalist representative, Dr. Schacht, but General Goering, who is a soldier and aviator and who believes that the chief business of Capitalism is to produce more cannons.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy for most of us is not an ism. It is a way of life. It does not represent any rigid form of state or national organization. It is something constantly developing and unfolding, changing from day to day, making mistakes, advancing in this direction and retreating in that, but always animated by a few fundamental ideas: that men have a right to live their own lives, provided they don't tread too heavily on other people's toes;…”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All my life I have been a pacifist. All my life I have hated war and loved peace. I have contributed to peace societies, written for peace, spoken for peace, paraded for peace. But today I seriously question whether our ways of seeking peace are not playing directly into the hands of those who love war and intend to pursue it.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have seen a German youth camp, housing six thousand children around the age of ten, display in tree-high letters the words: 'You were born to die for Germany!' I have seen babies of six and seven, black-shirted and belted, march in Italy in military drill. I have seen children in Russia kindergartens taught how to adjust gas masks and the strategy of trench warfare.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today in Germany the winner of the last Nobel peace prize is considered a traitor, and to attend any peace meeting would make one a candidate for a concentration camp. Today in Italy there is only one morality: the power and glory of Italy. Today in Russia all children are brought up to despise and hate 'the class enemy.'”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The attempts of some of our school authorities to prevent students from learning anything about Communism, for instance, are futile. Newspapers exist; correspondents report; people travel. It is quite impossible to act as though Russia did not exist, or were as inaccessible and mysterious as Mars.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The New Deal has enormously increased the sense of awareness; it has contributed radically to the breakdown of confidence in the forms and procedures of yesterday. But it has offered us no comprehensible picture of a future in which we can believe. We cannot believe that this vague eleemosynary humanitarianism, coupled with ruthless aggrandizement by politicians, is a picture of a new heaven and a new earth.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our children, it seems to me, learn the history of events, but are woefully unversed in the history of thought. [...] The result of this kind of teaching is to diminish all respect for intellect, reason and experience.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The word 'Liberal' has now become so variously interpreted that few people know what it means. Those who use it most precisely today are the Fascists and the Communists. They know what Liberalism is, and they are against it. For these people are collectivists.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Communists and Fascists are engaged in a sham struggle of ideas. The actual forms of government under which Fascists and Communists live are almost identical. One claims to abolish private property and attacks the other as its defender. But the property of Russia is not controlled by the people, but by the bureaucracy, operating in the name of the people, just as it is in Germany, where you get your head cut off if you try to hold your property in gold or in anything except German paper.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What confuses the mind of the average American is that the American collectivist calls himself a Liberal, and has pre-empted a word which has a totally different philosophy behind it. The Fascists and Communists know that Liberalism is the enemy. But the American collectivist, who calls himself a Liberal, believes that he can have the better of two worlds.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be a liberal means to believe in human freedom. It means to believe in human beings. It means to champion that form of social and political order which releases the greatest amount of human energy; permits greatest liberty for individuals and groups, in planning and living their lives; cherishes freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of action, limited by only one thing: the protection of the freedom of others.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rise of liberalism was accompanied by immense technological progress; by the industrial revolution; by the division of labor which ensued, and which suddenly, and prodigiously, accelerated the efficiency of production; and by the conception of economic life governed by the market. In other words, of economic life governed by the buyer, not the seller. This was a brand-new and wholly revolutionary idea.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pre-eighteenth century economics were governed, not by consumers, who determined what should be produced by what they were willing to buy in a competitive market, but by producers who enjoyed special privileges in return for the most stringent kind of state regulations. Mr. Walter Lippmann, in his book, The Good Society, points out that in the days of Louis XIV the manufacturers of France were told exactly what to produce and exactly how to produce it. Industry and agriculture were governed by codes more complicated than anything ever invented by the NRA or Mr. Wallace.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The easiest way to simplify society is to reduce it to a military organization. That is the most primitive form of social organization. And that is precisely what is being done. The unit of communal life shrinks. Wealth, prosperity, inventiveness, choice, demand are subordinated to simplified nationalistic aims. The very mind which created the liberal universe becomes atrophied through disuse.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liberalism is not being killed by dictators. Liberalism is committing suicide—out of despair and a bad conscience. What liberalism needs is a revival, in the evangelical sense of the word. It needs to admit its sins, as the basis of renewing its life.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The object of liberty is to give men and women a chance to be their best selves. That is its first and last purpose.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source